Tag: movies (Page 1 of 5)

Favorite Movie Cops

October 13, 2026 / Zander

Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), in In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman), in The French Connection (1971)
Frank Serpico (Al Pacino), in Serpico (1973)
John McClane (Bruce Willis), in Die Hard (1988)
Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), in Fargo (1996)

In chronological order.

Favorite Basketball Movies

September 29, 2026 / Zander

Hoosiers (David Anspaugh, 1986)
White Men Can’t Jump (Ron Shelton, 1992)
Blue Chips (William Friedkin, 1994)
He Got Game (Spike Lee, 1998)
Coach Carter (Thomas Carter, 2005)

In chronological order.

Up in the Air, on the page and on the screen

September 22, 2026 / Zander

Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air (2009) is a quietly devastating, sharply intelligent film that blends timely social commentary with an intimate portrait of loneliness and disconnection in the modern world. Adapted loosely from Walter Kirn’s 2001 novel of the same name, the film takes the broad premise of the book (a corporate downsizer addicted to life in airports and hotels) and refines it into a more focused and emotionally resonant exploration of what it means to be untethered in a world that values efficiency over connection. George Clooney delivers one of the most nuanced performances of his career as

Continue reading →

Favorite Boxing Movies

September 15, 2026 / Zander

Body and Soul (Robert Rossen, 1947)
The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949)
Champion (Mark Robson, 1949)
The Harder They Fall (Mark Robson, 1956)
Fat City (John Huston, 1972)
Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976)

In chronological order.

Favorite American Football Movies

September 1, 2026 / Zander

The Longest Yard (Robert Aldrich, 1974)
Everybody’s All American (Taylor Hackford, 1988)
Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999)
Remember the Titans (Boaz Yakin, 2000)
Friday Night Lights (Peter Berg, 2004)

In chronological order.

Favorite Baseball Movies

August 18, 2026 / Zander

The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984)
Bull Durham (Ron Shelton, 1988)
Eight Men Out (John Sayles, 1988)
Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)
For Love of the Game (Sam Raimi, 1999)
Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011)

In chronological order.

Three Times Carter

July 28, 2026 / Zander

Ted Lewis’s Jack’s Return Home (1970) occupies an interesting position in crime fiction history. It is not as famous as the film it inspired, yet it is arguably one of the foundational texts of modern British noir. Before Lewis, British crime fiction often retained traces of the gentleman detective, the police procedural, or the thriller. Lewis dragged the genre into something nastier, more provincial, and more psychologically damaged. His England is not the picturesque England of village mysteries but a decaying industrial landscape full of petty criminals, corruption, class resentment, and moral rot. It begins with the blunt, almost absurd

Continue reading →

Judging the Artist, Judging the Art

July 14, 2026 / Zander

One of the most persistent questions in aesthetics is whether it is possible to appreciate a work of art created by someone whose actions or beliefs we find morally reprehensible. The debate is hardly new, but in the age of social media and cancel culture it has acquired renewed urgency. Every few months, a novelist, filmmaker, musician, philosopher, or painter becomes the subject of public controversy, and the same question returns: should their work still be read, watched, heard, or admired? The issue is often framed as a choice between two extremes. One side argues that art should be judged

Continue reading →

Three Visits to Nightmare Alley

June 30, 2026 / Zander

The life of William Lindsay Gresham reads like a prelude to the novel that would define him. Before becoming a writer of dark Americana, he was a man drawn to causes, extremes, and self-destruction. In the late 1930s, he volunteered to fight for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, joining the International Brigades. He saw the collapse of that cause firsthand. It left its mark politically, psychologically, and spiritually. Back in the USA, Gresham struggled. He attempted suicide more than once. His personal life was not steady. He married the poet Joy Davidman, a brilliant and restless figure

Continue reading →

Did you really write that book?

June 2, 2026 / Zander

There’s a very specific narrative hook that shows up only occasionally in film: a writer comes into possession of a manuscript that is not theirs, and decides to pass it off as their own. It’s a narrow premise, almost schematic. Yet across three films, A Murder of Crows (Rowdy Herrington, 1998), The Words (Lee Sternthal & Brian Klugman, 2012), and Secret Window (David Koepp, 2004), it opens into three distinct genres: thriller, drama, and psychological horror. The divergence doesn’t come from the setup. In all three cases, the situation is similar enough: a struggling or compromised writer faces a moment

Continue reading →